


Everybody has Bad Days

by AlasDearLady



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, LeviHan AU Week, Love, Married Couple, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27464941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlasDearLady/pseuds/AlasDearLady
Summary: An alternate ending (of sorts) to the fic "What is and What Should Never Be," set twelve years after chapter eleven.Everyone has bad days. It's human nature. But sometimes, the little things can make it all better.
Relationships: Levi/Hange Zoë
Comments: 11
Kudos: 58





	Everybody has Bad Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sakurasmoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakurasmoon/gifts), [eveningchocolate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eveningchocolate/gifts).
  * Inspired by [What Is, and What Could Have Been](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27169615) by [AlasDearLady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlasDearLady/pseuds/AlasDearLady). 



It was a well-known fact that everyone had bad days. After all, life couldn’t be expected to be perfect all the time; in Levi Ackerman’s opinion, such thinking was foolish and unrealistic. He’d had days that were far worse than this one. 

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from fuming as he drove home. 

The whiny music on the radio wasn’t helping his mood in the slightest. 

He’d had a meeting today with the Committee, a group of snide, pompous farts who considered themselves superior to everyone they worked with. No wonder most people he met hated them with a burning passion. 

He couldn’t voice that hatred, though. It had taken an immense amount of wheedling and pleading and bargaining for the SCOUT Commander to convince them to pardon him for his previous involvement with the Ackerman clan. After all, he had been the one to bring them down. 

But it had come with a cost. The SCOUT commander had nearly died in what Levi thought was her most dangerous, brilliant mission- and she’d done it alone, without any help from the rest of her squad. He would never say it to her, but even now, almost twelve years later, he still had nightmares about it. His therapist had heard about those dreams one too many times. 

It was the commander who’d asked him to see a therapist in the first place. Levi told himself that it was because she was cunningly convincing, but he knew better. He was in no position to refuse her; the overwhelming guilt that he already felt every time he saw the remnant scars on her face would have swallowed him if he’d even dared to say no. He’d gone without complaint, and even he had to admit that it had done him good. 

Levi drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, adjusting his dark sunglasses. Sometimes his height could be a curse; the visor above his head that was supposed to shield his eyes from the blinding evening sun was utterly useless. 

His mood was still foul, but the adrenaline pumping through his veins was slowly ebbing away. During the meeting, one of the committee members had the  _ audacity  _ to imply that the commander’s injuries had been a result of her own incompetence. It had been the equivalent of rubbing salt in an old wound, and the only reason that Levi hadn’t snapped the man’s neck right then and there was that Moblit and Mike had seized his arms beneath the table and anchored him to his seat.  _ Our commander is the furthest thing from incompetent,  _ Mike had told him later.  _ Do what she does- just let the old bats talk. You know she hates them even more than you do, but take a leaf out of her book and tolerate them.  _

Levi and Mike Zacharias had slowly developed a friendship over the past few years. More than a decade ago, it was Mike who had pulled some strings and let him visit the commander in the hospital during his two-month incarceration. It was a gesture that Levi had never forgotten. 

Moblit, on the other hand, still hadn’t come around the bend- he was still fiercely devoted to the commander, and Levi knew he hadn’t earned his full trust yet. Before he had been informed that it was  _ not  _ Levi who had inflicted those injuries on the commander, Moblit had thrown himself forward with a howl of fury and broken Levi’s nose. Of course, Levi hadn’t raised a finger in retaliation. It was nothing compared to what the commander had endured. 

All that musing had done him some good; as he turned into the driveway of his house, he noted that the seething, visible anger had vanished, but there was still a cold current of fury rippling beneath his skin. There was nothing that ticked him off more than slander against the SCOUT commander. 

With a sudden jolt, he realized that there was a vehicle parked along the street in front of his house. Levi recognized it as one of the SCOUTs’ unmarked vehicles. He’d been working with them long enough now to know each one on sight. Heart pounding in his chest, he alighted from the Chevy he’d bought two months ago and shut the door behind him. 

There was no one in the SCOUT car, but his attention was diverted by a light on in his house. The kitchen. Perhaps he’d forgotten to turn it off that morning. 

As he watched, the light switched off. 

Every muscle in his body tensed automatically. No one was supposed to be in the house at the moment. One of the conditions of his freedom was that he was forbidden from carrying a weapon; he would have to enter the house barehanded. Not that it put him at much of a disadvantage. 

Cautiously, he approached the entrance to the house and turned the doorknob. It was unlocked. 

Levi knew he’d locked it that morning. He always did. 

The adrenaline was rushing through his body again, but not in anger. His muscles felt like tense, coiled springs, ready to move at the slightest provocation. 

With a sharp inhale, he flung the door open, eyes blazing, teeth bared-

“Papa!”

A small but considerable force barreled into his legs, nearly knocking him over. Levi stumbled, his arms going for the source of the cry instinctively before he could fall and accidentally hurt her in the process. 

“ _ Chel _ ?”

The kitchen light flicked on again, and the horrendous mess that was once Levi’s spotless kitchen was displayed in all its glory. There were smashed egg shells on the counter, a glob of melting butter forming a little puddle on the ground, and there was flour and sugar  _ everywhere.  _

“Oh Chel-Chel,” Levi groaned as he scooped his daughter into his arms and stepped inside gingerly, “did you get into the cooking supplies? I thought Mikasa and Eren were babysitting you today, did they bring you early-” 

“Mama brought me!” Chel giggled, clapping her hands excitedly. “Mama made cake!” 

Levi’s mouth fell open.

His wife was standing behind the counter, covered nearly head to foot in floury handprints of her own making, a smudge of icing on her cheek and her spectacles askew. The eyepatch she was wearing had little flour fingerprints on it too, from where she’d adjusted it while she was...cooking. 

“Surprise, Shorty!” With a dramatic flourish, Hanji gestured at a misshapen block of icing-covered cake sitting on the counter in front of her. 

“I-what-how are you  _ home?” _

“I took the afternoon off,” she said proudly, planting her hands on her hips. “Chel and I wanted to surprise you. I picked her up early, I wanted to give Mikasa and Eren a bit of a break. Sometimes Chel can be a little much to handle!”

Part of him wanted to be annoyed. After all, his kitchen was his prized possession, his comfort space that he loved keeping clean. But the more he gazed at his wife, the manic light shining in her gaze and that infectious, loopy grin, the harder it was to suppress his own laughter. 

He made his way over to her, setting Chel down (she immediately proceeded to cling to his knees as he walked, a favorite pastime of hers) and smiled up at his wife. A real, genuine smile; his first one all day. 

“What is it?” Hanji beamed. “You’re staring at me.”

“Come here,” Levi breathed, and Hanji’s smile never faded as he pulled her down gently by the chin and kissed her softly on the mouth. 

“Commander,” he said in a mock-disapproving tone as he drew back, Hanji’s breath mingling with his own, “have you been eating the frosting?”

“Er...no?”

He swiped his tongue along her cheek, licking the smudge of pink frosting away, and noted the rising blush on her cheeks with some satisfaction. “Strawberry. I like it.” 

“Papa,” Chel whined, tugging on his ankle, “I want cake!” 

Later that night, when the cake had long vanished and Chel was sound asleep, Levi was lying in bed when Hanji came out of the shower, her wet hair dripping onto the back of her pajamas. With some amusement, Levi noted that there were tiny images of chemistry apparatus patterned on them. 

“Nice outfit, Commander,” he said aloud. “Very professional.”

Hanji stuck her tongue out in response. Her eye patch was off, and the sight of her injured eye was almost too much for Levi to bear. He looked away suddenly, swallowing a painful lump in his throat. 

In an instant, Hanji had clambered up onto the bed and knocked him backwards, pinning him down with her elbows. 

“Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p’. “That’s your guilty face. Tell me what’s wrong.”

She was still adept at reading his damn face. 

“Hanji, your hair is dripping all over my shirt.” 

She shook her head like a dog, and Levi laughed aloud as the water splattered across his cheeks and chin. “I won’t stop til you tell me what that face is for. You have five seconds before I tickle you, and you know I don’t care if Chel wakes up.”

“It’s your injury,” Levi said quickly. “It still- it’s still hard for me to look at. Not like  _ that,  _ of course!” He scrambled to amend his statement as Hanji scowled down at him. “It’s not ugly at all. It’s hard for me to look at because...because I let that happen to you. If I’d only gotten there sooner-mmf!”

He broke off as she smothered him with a barrage of kisses all over his mouth and chin. 

“Oh, my sweet Shorty,” she sighed as she flopped down onto his chest and gazed up at him. “It’s been more than a decade. Will I never be able to convince you that this  _ wasn’t your fault?”  _

“I can’t help it,” Levi muttered. “I still think about that day. It’s always there. I can’t forget.” 

“I’m not asking you to forget,” Hanji murmured. “I haven’t forgotten, and I never will. But think of how far we’ve come since then. So many good things have happened. We got to spend time with each other. We got  _ married,  _ for crying out loud. We have a  _ daughter _ . It might sound morbid, but an eye was a small price to pay.” 

There was a sharp flare of pain in his chest, and Levi caught his wife’s hand in his own and brought it to his lips. “Don’t say it like that, Hanji. Never say that it was a price.” 

“Fine.” She smirked. “I won’t say that, as long as you never say it was your fault.”

Levi gritted his teeth. “Touché. You got me there.” 

“Mama,” a small voice came from the doorway, and they both sat up and turned around to see a very drowsy Chel dragging her blanket and a stuffed dinosaur behind her. “I had a scary dream.” She was a rather independent child for her age, but the minute she needed comfort, she made a beeline for her mother. 

_ Very like her father in that aspect,  _ Levi thought wryly. 

“Come up here, my little bean,” Hanji cooed affectionately, and the three of them huddled together beneath the thick blanket as Levi and Hanji sang whatever bits of lullaby they knew between them. Not even ten minutes later, Chel was sound asleep once more. 

“She looks so much like you,” Hanji mused, reaching out to stroke Levi’s hair away from his forehead. The gold band on her finger, the twin to his own, was cold against his skin. “I’m glad."

“Like  _ me? _ ” Levi let out a quiet chuckle. “And I thought she looked like you. Beautiful, just like her mother.” 

His stomach fluttered as Hanji blushed. Even after ten years, his mind and body didn’t seem to be able to register that the commander was real, and that she had chosen to be here with him. 

_ How did I get so lucky? _

“I meant to ask,” Hanji hummed as she dozed off, her hand still combing through Levi’s hair, “how was your day?”

Levi was quiet for a moment, then he smiled, savoring the comforting feeling of her hand in his hair and the reassuring sound of his daughter’s soft snuffling snores. 

“It was wonderful.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this. I love the idea of domestic Levi/Hanji and to be honest with you, writing 'What is and What Should Never Be' made me so sad that I was inspired to write an alternative happy ending! This is what would have happened if the previous fic hadn't ended the way that it did. The name of Levi and Hanji's daughter, Chel, was inspired by Levi's own mother, Kuchel Ackerman.  
> In an alternate universe somewhere out there...the Ackerman-Zoe family is healing and happy.


End file.
